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Table of Contents

• Effective First-Grade Teaching Methods
• First-Grade Teachers Who Build Strong Readers and Writers
• Assessing for Readiness?
• First-Grade Literacy Accomplishments

 

Effective First-Grade Teaching Methods

The National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement (CELA), located at the University of Albany, part of the State University system in New York, has released data demonstrating a connection between a set of first-grade teaching practices and student reading performance. A study of 30 schools in five states [California, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin] found that when a particular combination of teaching methods was used, it led to student achievement, particularly among the students who began first grade as low achievers. This new study shows that students read better because they are encouraged to read and write extensively. To make this happen, their teachers:

• Emphasize reading, writing, and literature;
• Monitor student development and teach skills explicitly, typically in context;
• Assign texts and tasks at which students can succeed;
• Accelerate demands as students gain competence; and
• Draw connections across the curriculum.

The teachers can give students individual attention because they

• Manage their classrooms well;
• Teach children to take responsibility for their behavior and learning; and
• Teach children a variety of strategies to use as they read and write independently.

Among the measures the researchers used to assess effectiveness was the CTB-McGraw Hill Terra Nova reading achievement test. Results of end-of-the-year testing are dramatic: the most striking difference between student performance among the two groups of teachers was that the lowest achieving students in the most effective teachers’ classrooms outscored their peers in the more typical classrooms to a significant degree on three key sub-tests: passage reading, vocabulary, and word analysis. Passage reading and vocabulary produce a composite score.

The most striking difference between student performance among the two groups of teachers was that the lowest achieving students in the most effective teachers’ classrooms outscored their peers in the more typical classrooms to a significant degree on three key sub-tests: passage reading, vocabulary, and word analysis.

The gains low-achieving students made during the year enabled them to not only pull ahead of their peers, but to equal or, in some cases, to surpass the achievement of the "average" students in the more typical classrooms.

Overall, the students in the most effective classrooms outperformed those in the more typical classrooms on the end-of-the-year test, with the most significant difference being in their word analysis skills.

These findings are the result of research carried out with a diverse group of students, including many considered "at risk" of school failure. The study is currently being validated in fourth-grade classrooms in many parts of the United States, and the researchers are developing materials to help teachers learn to use the identified strategies.

Resources available to date include various newsletter articles, a four-color poster for teachers that lists the characteristics of effective instruction (available by request from CELA), and the report itself, available online at [http://cela.albany.edu/1stgradelit/index.html [NAECS Editor's note: This link is no longer active], or by contacting Janet Angelis, CELA Associate Director, (518) 442-5023.

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CELA is dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts. In particular, CELA focuses on essential skills and emphasizes that students need to read, write, listen, and speak well about a variety of content and subject matter. CELA serves as the national research center that focuses on student literacy, K-12, and is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Research and Improvement. The above information is reprinted from press releases provided by CELA, which may be contacted at the National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement, University of Albany, SUNY, ED-B9, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222, (518) 442-5026.

First-Grade Teachers Who Build Strong Readers and Writers

Emphasize reading, writing; and literature, e.g., through teacher reading, author studies, book discussions, and accessible classroom collections.

Set high but realistic expectations-and consistently encourage students to try more challenging tasks. Teachers monitor student use of skills, provide prompts, and offer much "scaffolding" during reading and writing activities.

Make the classroom a positive, reinforcing, cooperative environment. Teachers encourage cooperation among students and build it into daily activities. They model positive talk and reinforce effort in academic work.

Provide long, uninterrupted periods for successful reading and writing experiences. Students read and write every day.

Teach literacy skills explicitly, in context. Reading and writing tasks provide contexts for planful, opportunistic, explicit teaching and frequent practice opportunities for students.

Make strong connections across the curriculum. Teachers integrate reading and writing provide seamless Instruction, and employ literacy strategies to help students gain content knowledge.

Foster student self-regulation. Teachers explicitly encourage students to self-monitor use of time, organization, and work habits.

Demonstrate excellent classroom management skills. Their instructional planning is evident they make rules and expectations clear, meaningfully engage assistants, and give students plenty of academically manageable tasks.

 

Assessing for Readiness?

Susan Sidney Smith

Although there may be merit in knowing colors, shapes, and how to skip, it is difficult to justify how these concepts predict future academic learning. Knowledge of letters can be important; research has found strong relationships between kindergartners' letter-name knowledge and 1st grade reading achievement (de Hirsch, Jansky, & Langford, 1966). Nonetheless, using a child's letter-name performance as a school readiness predictor can be deceptive. Reports from several studies (for example, Scanlon Vellutino, Small, Spearing & Wharton-McDonald, 1993) have identified kindergarten entrants who knew all their letter names and then struggled to learn to read in subsequent years. A child's letter-name knowledge is easy to assess, but it falls short of accurately predicting his or her future school success.

Measuring social maturity may also be risky. All too often, teachers are asked to briefly observe and then to recommend 5-year-olds who may be better suited for a developmental program or who may need an additional year before entering school. Despite the good intentions of the recommendations, the notion that children can benefit from spending an extra year in a less challenging environment is unfounded. Interactions and experiences with more mature role models greatly influence children's social development. Therefore, staying at home, in preschool, or in a special developmental program is counterproductive. Entrants who exhibit immature behaviors or demonstrate limited knowledge of so-called readiness concepts need to participate in rich, stimulating programs that enhance both their social and their intellectual development.

Conventional readiness practices often contradict a substantial body of research findings. May and Welch (1984) compared the achievement of students placed in a developmental kindergarten with that of two groups, those who were recommended for other placement but chose to enter regular kindergarten and dime who attended regular kindergarten. By the end of 3rd grade, the developmental kindergartners were the lowest achieving group of the three, even through they were one year older.

Primary teachers base beliefs about the benefits of retention on incomplete and misleading information.

Banerji (1990) examined the effects of developmental kindergarten in a four-year longitudinal study. He found that the developmental kindergartners benefited from the program in the first two years, but did not benefit in the third and fourth years. Even initial benefits were tempered by the fact that the developmental kindergartners were a year older than their comparison group.

Hence, the extra-year program is difficult to justify. Developmental kindergartens require costly expenditures from schools, and irreplaceable time from children—with virtually no guarantee of rewards. In an attempt to link kindergarten practices with empirical findings, the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education issued a Summary of Principles for Kindergarten Entry and Placement (1987). The organization recommends that "all children should be welcomed as they are into heterogeneous kindergarten settings ... they are not segregated into extra-year programs prior to or following regular kindergarten" (p. 3).

Clearly kindergarten classes should represent children with different abilities. Just as we expect children to enter schools in different sizes and shapes, we should celebrate their diverse range of skills and knowledge. Students can learn from one another, as well as from good teachers.

The immature child observes how more mature children interact with one another and benefits from the observation. The less knowledgeable child shares books with and writes alongside more experienced readers and writers. Today, our best kindergarten programs strive to promote learning for all children. Our mission is not to homogenize the group by requiring standard K-level performance from all children. Indeed, some have already surpassed these standards before they enter kindergarten. Rather, every child should experience a stimulating program.

Children who enter school already reading need to be challenged to expand their abilities at more advanced levels. Others who enter with little awareness of letters or print should be encouraged to learn about literacy concepts. More important, we must realize that these less literate kindergartners are not anomalies—they enter our schools every year. Hence, the only truly predictable aspect of school readiness is that children will enroll with wide diversity in their abilities.

References

Banerji, M. (April 1990). Longitudinal effects of two-year developmental kindergarten programs on academic achievement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston, MA.

de Hirsch, K., Jansky, J., & Langford, W.S. (1966). Predicting Reading Failure. New York: Harper & Row.

May, D.C. & Welch, E.L. (1984). The effects of developmental placement and early retention of children’s later scores on standardized tests. Psychology in the Schools, 21, 381-385.

National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education (1987). Unacceptable trends in kindergarten entry and placement. Chicago: Author.

Scanlon, D.M., Vellutino, F., Small, S.G., Spearing, D., & Wharton-McDonald, R. (May 1993). Prediction of reading disability and progress in remediation using a kindergarten test battery. Paper presented to the International Reading Association, San Antonio, TX

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The above article is excerpted from Susan Sidney Smith’s "Reforming the Kindergarten Round-Up," which appeared in the March 1999 issue of Educational Leadership, 56 (6), 39-44, and is used with the permission of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). Smith is an Associate Professor of Education and may be contacted at Drake University, School of Education, 3206 University, Des Moines, Iowa 50311, e-mail: <Susan.Smith@Drake.edu>
Despite the good intentions of the recommendations, the notion that children can benefit from spending an extra year in a less challenging environment is unfounded.

First-Grade Literacy Accomplishments

Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1998) and Starting Out Right: A Guide to Promoting Children's Reading Success (1999) present highlights of literacy acquisition, sets of accomplishments that the successful learner should exhibit by the end of each of the primary grades. Although the timing of these accomplishments will vary among children, they are the sorts of things that should be in place before entering the next grade.

Accomplishments for a first-grader include:

• Makes a transition from emergent to "real" reading.
• Reads aloud with accuracy and comprehension any text that is appropriately designed for the first half of grade one.
• Accurately decodes orthographically regular one-syllable words and nonsense words (e.g., "sit," "zot"), using print-sound mappings to sound out unknown words.
• Uses letter-sound correspondence knowledge to sound out unknown words when reading text.
• Recognizes common, irregularly spelled words by sight ("have," "said," "where," "two").
• Has a reading vocabulary of 300 to 500 sight words and easily sounded-out words.
• Monitors own reading and self-corrects when an incorrectly identified word does not fit with cues provided by the letters in the word or the context surrounding the word.
• Reads and comprehends both fiction and nonfiction that is appropriately designed for the grade level.
• Shows evidence of expanding language repertoire, including increasing appropriate use of standard, more formal language.
• Creates own written texts for others to read.
• Notices when difficulties are encountered in understanding text.
• Reads and understands simple written instructions.
• Predicts and justifies what will happen next in stories.
• Discusses prior knowledge of topics in expository texts.
• Uses how, why, and what-if questions to discuss nonfiction texts.
• Describes new information gained from texts in own words.
• Distinguishes whether simple sentences are incomplete or fail to make sense; notices when simple texts fail to make sense.
• Can answer simple written comprehension questions based on the material read.
• Can count the number of syllables in a word.
• Can blend or segment the phonemes of most one-syllable words.
• Spells correctly three- and four-letter short vowel words.
• Composes fairly readable first drafts using appropriate parts of the writing process (some attention to planning, drafting, rereading for meaning, and some self correction).
• Uses invented spelling or phonics-based knowledge to spell independently, when necessary.
• Shows spelling consciousness or sensitivity to conventional spelling.
• Uses basic punctuation and capitalization.
• Produces a variety of types of compositions (e.g., stories, descriptions, journal entries) showing appropriate relationships between printed text, illustrations, and other graphics.
• Engages in a variety of literacy activities voluntarily (e.g., choosing books and stories to read, writing a note to a friend).

The above excerpt is reprinted with permission from Starting Out Right: A Guide to Promoting Children’s Reading Success. Copies of the entire publication are available from the National Academy Press, 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW, Lockbox 285, Washington, DC 20055, (800) 624-6242, at a cost of $14.95 per book. The report is also available online at <http://www.nap.edu>.

Of Primary Interest Online

Of Primary Interest is now available on the internet. Issues may be retrieved by accessing the website which the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education (NAECS/SDE) maintains, courtesy of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education. As each issue has been posted on the NAECS/SDE website. Plans call for all past issues (1993-97) to be posted as well, in order to form a chronological archive. Of Primary Interest may be accessed at http://ericps.crc.uiuc.edu/naecs/opi-nl.html [NAECS Editor's note (01-30-05): This URL has changed: http://naecs.crc.uiuc.edu/newsletter.html].

REPRINT POLICY

Material contained in Of Primary Interest may be reprinted in other forms, such as books, newsletters, or journals, provided that a copy of such reprinting is sent to the Colorado Department of Education, and that the reprinting contains the name Of Primary Interest and the fact that this newsletter is published cooperatively by the Colorado, Iowa, and Nebraska Departments of Education, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Montana Office of Public Instruction. Permission to make photocopies is not required if the copies are to share with parents, teachers, or students; for library reserve; or for personal use; however, the name Of Primary Interest must appear in the copy. Additional issues of the publication may be requested from the editor at the Colorado Department of Education.

This page last updated: December 13, 2007